San Francisco Bike Lane Brouhaha
San Francisco resident Rob Anderson recently got a lot of play in the local press over his work getting an injunction to stop all activity related to expanding and improving bike lanes across The City. In a sad irony, he managed to convince the judge that because The City didn’t follow the proper procedures for conducting an Environmental Impact Report, they weren’t in compliance with the law. The City Attorney, naturally, disagrees.
In a follow up comment to his press release announcing the judge’s decision to issue the injuction, he states:
“I am not pro-car or even anti-bike. I just think that redesigning the city’s streets on behalf of 1% of the city’s population—taking away traffic lanes and street parking, among other things—is poor public policy. I also think riding a bike in the city is very dangerous and shouldn’t be encouraged by city government. This whole bike thing is a progressive utopian fantasy that’s not going to happen.”
Speaking of fantasies, I’d have to say that 1% number is seriously suspect. I find it very hard to believe that fewer than 9,000 people in San Francisco ride bicycles in The City. Rob responded to the recent coverage in this post. I went ahead and left a comment, but since they’re moderated and I didn’t want to risk losing it, I’m cross-posting my response below:
I don’t understand how you can maintain that riding a bike in The City is any more dangerous than walking or driving a car.
According to the CDC, 623 people died while riding a bicycle in the state of California between 1999 and 2003, at a rate of 3.6 per million in population. Whereas occupants of motor vehicles in the same area and period died at the rate of 46.4 per million (8,006 deaths). That means riding in a car is an order of magnitude more dangerous than riding a bicycle.
Walking, actually, is way more dangerous than riding a bike, with 4,052 pedestrians killed — and I’d be willing to bet the farm that 99% of those pedestrian deaths involved a car, truck or bus fender. For more perspective, firearms accounted for 16,240 deaths — making cars half as deadly as guns.
As for your argument that this affects small business disproportionately, you’ve only offered anecdotal evidence. While certainly compelling, that does not mean that there is, on average, any impact on business in The City (positive or negative) by removing parking spaces to create bike lanes.
Finally, while demanding The City comply with local, state and federal laws and procedures is admirable, this was obviously a good-faith effort to improve the environmental conditions in The City by decreasing the amount of car traffic (and, therefore, emmissions). So why are you surprised that you are being called a curmudgeon after challenging a popular and well-intentioned program on a bureaucratic technicality? That’s what curmudgeons do.
To make a final point, all motor vehicle related deaths for the period total 19,418, actually making internal-combustion traffic more deadly than firearms. If you’re interested, I done got my statistics from this tool at the CDC, which is one of my favorite new research resources.
Even if less than one percent of the city rode bikes, one hundred percent of the population benefits: fewer emissions, fewer traffic fatalities, less road maintenance, and neighborhoods that you can comfortably walk through (because even if you like to drive, you still have to walk from your car to the front door of your destination).
Not only that — but how do we determine whether a person “rides a bike”? Do they qualify if they only ride a bike sometimes? Do they have to ride it at least once a week? Once a month? Do they count if they own a bike but don’t ride it? What if they skateboard? I see a lot of kids getting around on those.
And I suspect that there are non-bike-riders who support bike lanes. I don’t actually own a bike, but I like the idea of having the lanes so that if I decided to ride one, I could do so safely. Even if we somehow agree that such-and-such percent of the city “rides a bike,” how many more percent support bicyclists’ right to do so safely?
Just FYI, leaving comments on Rob Anderson’s blog is like pissing into the wind. If he doesn’t like what you have to say, he doesn’t post it. I have no problem with people moderating the comments on their blogs, but one must admit that the conversation becomes rather one-sided.
I know this because a while back I tried to correct his claim that Octavia Blvd is more than two miles from Union Square. Rob never posted my comment, nor did he change his blog post. It isn’t a huge deal, but it does indicate that he is a fan of hyperbolic statements, like claiming that only 1% of San Francisco residents ride bikes.
My point, essentially, is that bicycling (besides being faster) is actually the safest way to get around The City. Sensational cases of hit-and-run aside. The traffic problem is caused by motor vehicles and motor vehicles alone. Sure, somebody may have broken an arm or a collar bone falling off a bike, but nobody done died.
So if Mr. Anderson has a brain on his shoulders (and isn’t just a shill for Nathan Nayman), then he’ll realize the quixotic nature of his anti-biking quest and back the fuck off.
I did in fact post the comment about Union Square, and I responded to it. Check it out. And I post every comment that comes in, though there’s often a delay, since Blogspot’s new system runs every comment by the blogger before it’s posted.
We can argue about the safety or lack thereof of cycling in the city, but that’s not what this litigation is about, which is that San Francisco progressives are not above the law. SF cannot have its own law on gay marriage until state law is changed. SF cannot have its own gun laws—even though I voted for Prop. H, too—because that subject is also pre-empted by state law. And the Feds can legally come in and close every pot club in the city if they were so inclined. Our litigation says something a lot less controversial than those cases: that SF is also subject to CEQA, which means it has to do an environmental study before it embarks on major projects that are going to affect the city’s environment. And, just as important, the people in our neighborhoods have a right to know what the city and the SFBC are determined to do to their streets, including taking away traffic lanes and street parking. What’s the hurry? The case will be heard in September, and the court may order the city to do an EIR. What’s the big problem? At the very least, that will give the public a chance to actually learn what’s in the Plan, which has to be a healthy thing politically.
Rob Anderson is a very sad man , and should probably seek some help.
His “king of the world” attitude is unfortunately like our great president. Who, although rolls up his sleeves for the pictures, is truly not doing much in the way of helping the situation. By admiting that he voted for prop H, and stating that SF can not make it’s own laws, he is lending himself deaf ears to people he should be trying to get on his side if he thinks he is right. For the fact that one persons opinion, is not always the right choice. We all make mistakes Rob.
[...] Now I discover that a popular Portland radio jockey was heard tacitly encouraging outright violence to urban cyclists (with similar, if distinctly hyperbolic, gripes voiced here in The City by Rob Anderson and his supporters). What was ignorance, followed by antipathy, towards the bicycle set seems to be turning antagonistic. And of course, the folks in cars have the final say, in terms of physics (though often law as well), on the road. [...]
Worldwide Campaign to Take the Lane
Yes, why not. If we are some more than a nuisance to drivers, then we too belong in the lane, the middle of the lane that is, since we can’t be happy with the scraps of riding in the gutter, and then be terrorized there too, like it happened to me the other day when a black SUV blasted the horn in an act of intimidation. The Big Fish eats the Little Fish, but the sardines had it. Well, the Jungle may never be the same…
Hey, I just noticed that Rob himself responded to this. I will report that Rob now updates his blog more frequently, and does post comments even if he doesn’t agree with them. The situaiton is now corrected, so good for Rob.
Give me an old cool bicycle, and I’ll ride around the city for days.